I’ll find someone who can,’ he said, flipping back the sheet.
‘You can’t just wander about the place,’ she said fiercely, drawing herself up so that she looked even larger.
‘Where are my clothes?’ he demanded, getting out of the bed and eyeing the matron with a look of savage intent that made her back off a step.
‘I see our patient is feeling sprightlier this morning,’ said a voice. Ben turned to see Dr Prendergast walk in. His paisley bow tie was even more garish than the one he’d been wearing last night – but what instantly caught Ben’s eye instead were the grim-looking pair who had followed him into the ward. They certainly didn’t look like medical personnel.
‘You have visitors,’ the doctor said.
Oklahoma
It was 2.30 a.m. and Erin Hayes couldn’t sleep. She stood at the window of her dark motel room, gazing blankly out. There was nothing to see out there but the blinking neon sign that said ‘Western Capri Motel’ and the lights of the occasional passing vehicle on West Skelly Drive beyond. But even if there had been, Erin would barely have registered it. Her mind was focused inward on what she’d witnessed just two nights ago at the cabin by the lake.
Thinking back to it was like trying to recall the fragments of a nightmare. Some things her memory seemed to be trying to blank out, as if to protect her from the horror of what had happened; other things she remembered as vividly as if they were happening to her right this moment. She pictured herself running, running through the woods, stumbling over the uneven ground, thorny undergrowth biting at her bare feet, branches lashing at her face. Reaching the road, her aching soles pounding on the hard surface as she willed herself to get far away, the breath tearing out of her lungs. Glancing back in terror every few seconds in case they were chasing her.
The lights of the car coming up behind had almost stopped her heart with fear. She’d wanted to leap off the road and run back into the trees, but it was too late. They’d seen her. The car had slowed as it came near. The window had wound down.
And a woman’s voice had called from the driver’s seat, ‘Are you in trouble, honey?’
Erin had quickly thrust the gun out of sight into her backpack. Saved! For now.
Maggie was a waitress returning home after her shift at the all-night bar where she worked outside the town of Foyil, a few miles east. She’d been only too happy to give Erin a ride back into Tulsa, joining Route 66 and heading southwest through sleepy Claremore and Catoosa. She’d kept asking if Erin was okay, and so Erin had made up a story about having had a terrible bust-up with her boyfriend. A few years ago, with Darryl, that might’ve been true enough. A veteran of four stormy marriages, Maggie could empathise. She kind-heartedly insisted on driving all the way across town to Crosbie Heights and dropping Erin off right outside her door.
It had been late when Erin had finally run up the porch steps of the tiny two-bedroomed house and let herself inside, triple-locking the door behind her. In the bathroom, she’d nursed the tender, inflamed soles of her bare feet before padding downstairs in fresh socks and pouring herself a stiff drink. Quickly followed by another, it had done little to settle her nerves as she wondered what to do.
Nothing else for it, she’d thought. I have to call the cops. Angela’s family will be torn apart. The Desert Rose Trust won’t survive the scandal. I’ll lose my job. I’ll lose everything. But I have to call the cops anyway.
The evidence, she’d remembered. The evidence was in her backpack. She fumbled the phone out of the bag and replayed the video she’d taken. With luck, she was just going crazy and she’d simply imagined the whole thing.
To her horror, the video playback confirmed that she hadn’t imagined any of it. Worse, the quality of the footage was terrible. You could hardly see a thing except grainy shadows and overexposed glare. Quickly searching out a USB cable, she’d connected the phone to the computer in the little room she used as an office and downloaded the video onto that, but it hardly looked any better on the larger screen. For just one moment, there was a clear glimpse of Angela’s husband standing there, but he’d been facing away from the camera and only his outline and the back of his head could be made out. Even the sound was garbled and booming and virtually incomprehensible.
Her first thought had been Shit! How can I go to the cops with this? Nobody will believe me.
She’d been standing there, frozen in indecision, when the sudden ringing of the phone on her desk had made her jump. Who would be calling her at this time of night? She’d hesitated, shaking, then picked up the handset.
‘Hello?’
No reply. The caller had just hung up without a word.
Erin had dialled to check their number, but it had been withheld. It could have been anything. It could have been a wrong number.
Or it could have been them.
What if they’d discovered the things she’d had to leave behind in the cabin? What if there was something among them to identify her? Or else, what if Angela had innocently mentioned Erin’s visit to the cabin to her husband? Or what if Joe, the driver, had said something? There were any number of ways that her presence there could be found out.
They know where I live, she’d thought. And that was them calling. Now they know I’m home.
Convinced that it wasn’t safe to stay put another minute, she’d acted fast. The video evidence wasn’t great, but nonetheless she’d quickly burned it onto two blank DVDs. Like Daddy had said: always have a backup. Then she’d hurried upstairs to pull on an old pair of running shoes from her wardrobe. Stuffed a few more things into her backpack. Unlocked the steel ammo cabinet under her bed, taken out all three of the ready-loaded Springfield magazines she kept in there, and dropped them into the zippered side pocket of her backpack together with the pistol itself. There was a can of Mace in a bedside drawer, put there as a last defensive resort in case of a home invasion when she didn’t have her gun to hand. She tossed the Mace in the pack, too. Now she was ready.
Outside, the sleeping street had been empty. No suspicious-looking cars were parked nearby, no sinister watchers spying on the house. Hobbling slightly on her tender feet, she’d left the house at an awkward jog that quickly became a run.
And she hadn’t been back there since.
Now here she was holed up in this motel, two nights later and eleven miles outside the city, unable to sleep, barely venturing outside except when hunger drove her the quarter-mile to the greasy diner the other side of the highway. She was still racking her brains night and day as to how to deal with what she’d witnessed, and going nowhere.
All she knew was that she daren’t return home right now. There was nobody else she could go to, either. Darryl, her ex? Forget it. Her friends? How could she burden them with this? Her mother? No chance. Now she’d hooked up with her new man – was that the fourth since Daddy died, or the fifth? – she spent her days in the trailer they called home, steadily obliterating what was left of her brains with cheap liquor. They hardly even spoke any more, and Erin was damned if she was going to turn up there looking for help or shelter.
Maybe
